theshell.ch/site/pages/fs/absolute.html

---
layout: page
category-page: fs
category-title: FileSystem
tags: absolute relative path
author: Marwan Announ
title: paths
---
<p>
<h1>Absolute Path</h1>

<h2>First, what is a path?</h2>

<p>
  A path is a location to a folder or file in a file system of a Operating System, then is a combination of characters
  and "/"
</p>

<h3>Now, what is an Absolute path?</h3>


<p>
  An absolute path is defined as specifying the location of a file or directory from the root directory(/).
  In other words we can say absolute path is a complete path from start of actual filesystem from / directory.
</p>

<h4>To write an absolute path-name:</h4>

<pre> <p>
  Start at the root directory ( / ) and work down.
  <br>Write a slash ( / ) after every directory name (last one is optional)
</p> </pre>

<h5>Example:</h5>

<pre> <p> cat group1.txt </p> </pre>
if for example, we use the above line, this commands work only and only if the "group1.txt" exist in the current
directory.
<br> If not works, it's not a problem, the file is present somewhere, before restart the new command, you have to
know where
<br> the file is saved.
<br> Now, we supposed that you know where your file is saved you can rewrite the command.
<p> cat /home/a1/group1.txt</p>
Now, we suppose that the file is saved into folder a1 in home,
<br>where: /home is the location respect to root, in fact, you have to descend one level
<br>in the file system like above to access your file.

As you can see from the last commands, all the paths started from /directory whis is a root directory for every Unix
machines.

<p> Other examples, where all are absolute path</p>
<pre>
/home/user/Document/group1.txt
/root/data/dev.jpg
/var/log/messages</pre>

<h6>Example of Absolute path's uses:</h6>
Now, as we learned from the previous pages we can use other commands in addition to "cat", such as:

<pre>
<br>ls /etc
<br>ls /usr/share/games if you have games obviously :)
<br>cd /usr/share/games
<br>cd ~
<br>cat /etc/passwd
<br>cp /etc/passwd /tmp
<br>cd /tmp
<br>cat passwd
</pre>

<br><br><br> <h7> Read this if you are not Bill Gates, so read this..  </h7>

<p> So, if you dont't understand anything, like me before this writing, you have to know that Absolute pathnames start with a
   <br>slash on the left(simplyfied version..).
   <br>For example etc/passwd is a good example of Absolute pathnames.
</p>